charbergs

Hello everyone,

My wife and I have ridden a Cannonade stock tandem for 15 years, and around 8 years ago started pulling a Wee Hoo double recumbent trail a bike with our kids. 3 years ago we bought a used tandem Adams trail a bike for $60, and we've built up to doing 70 miles of the Door County Century each of the last two years. This has worked well for us, since our 12 year old has a developmental disability.

They are outgrowing it, however, so we are in the market for a true Quad Tandem and are looking for advice.

Initially we've explored R+E in Seattle (https://rodbikes.com/catalog/long-bi...ikes-main.html) as well as Co-motion (the quad version of this: https://co-motion.com/products/peris...nt-convertible)

A few questions:
1). What are people's thoughts on the best brake arrangement? The R+E folks feel strongly that caliper brakes in the front with a drum rear disc brake is the best arrangement because the disc in the front tends to warp and is a hassle.
2). Our current tandem has standard handlebar with drops. What do people think about this vs. straight bars with maybe Ergon GP5 grips?
3). Does anyone have positive and/or negative experience with a triple or quad from either of these companies?
4). Should we be considering other manufacturers?

Thanks in advance!

Charlie

act0fgod

Sorry I can't be of any real help with your questions as I've never ridden more than a tandem, but there is currently a quad for sale on tandem classifieds. You mention RE in seattle so if you are in the pacific northwest it might be worth a trip to try it out. If nothing else I'd venture they'd be willing to provide advice.

Used 2005 CoMotion Quad Large w/ Carrier For Sale (tandemclassifieds.com)

There was also a pretty cheap quad on craigslist recently (I think it was Southern CA but not certain)

WheelsNT

We have a Co-Motion steel quad that we bought used. We've had it for 10-ish years now, We have a decent amount of mileage on it, but with kids' sports there are times of the year when it doesn't get used much because we have too much going on. So let me caveat everything I say that there are others with more experience (mileage) on multi-seat tandems who may have different opinions.

1) Ours has a v-brake on the front and mounts for a v-brake, disc, and drum in the back. You may have just mistyped above where you said "a drum rear disc brake", so you may already understand this, but just in case -- Disc and drum are not the same. Discs are very common at this point, but drums not so much. Halfway down this page: https://sheldonbrown.com/tandem-brakes.html is a picture of an Arai drum brake. Discs are used to stop the bike. Drums have an enormous capacity to dissipate heat, and are used as a drag brake for speed control while descending. You usually put a drum brake on a friction shifter so you can set it to a level and leave it at that level until you reach the bottom of the descent. Discs do have more usable heat capacity than rim brakes, but if you try to use a disc as a drag brake on a long descent, it will fail. On the rear of our bike, you could mount either a disc or a drum, and also a v-brake at the same time. For serious descending, the setup would be drum + v-brake on the rear, and the v-brake (the only option) on the front. The drum would be used for speed control on descents and the v-brakes to stop the bike.

All that said, we are in Northern VA. We do not descend anything. We have a mechanical rear disc on the bike and the v-brake on the front. That's been completely fine. If I were building a new quad and got to choose, I would probably put a disc on the front instead of the v-brake; it would give a little more braking power and a little more heat dissipation than the rim brake. The tradeoff is a little more effort getting the wheel on and off -- rim brakes are easier than discs in that respect. On the back, I would probably get exactly what we have, with all three mounts which has flexibility.

For YOU, I would say it depends on where you are going to ride. As to R+E's thoughts, I am respectful of their expertise in building both tandems and multi-seat (more than 2) tandems. However, in this case what they're saying doesn't make much sense to me. Just about every bike sold at this point has a front disc. Are all those people having their front rotor warp? And what's difference between a front disc on a single bike and a front disc on a quad? Just the fork loading. So I think that their comments might be more related to having to build a fork strong enough to take the loads of a large front disc than what provides the best braking. I think that front and rear discs will be fine for anything other than serious descending. Their recommendation of front v-brake with rear disc would also be fine for most things, just a little less heat capacity than the disc and a little more brake effort.

Edit: Sorry, I just noticed R+E's recommendation was not a v-brake but rather a caliper. That seems nuts to me. I raced on calipers, I have no problem with calipers, I still think they are fine for single bikes and don't understand the general infatuation with discs for single bikes. But I wouldn't put a caliper on a quad. Just my $0.02.

2) For the handlebars, you can go with either, but I do think you should have a wide width. In slow speed maneuvering on a quad (at least for me), the extra leverage from a wider bar is helpful. Ours came with flat bars when we bought it, and although I've thought about changing to drops (which I prefer) I've never gotten around to it. The flat bars are 52cm wide, and they have some Cane Creek ends on them that take the width out to about 58.5cm. If I were going to change to drops I would look for the widest thing I could find, probably 48cm. You do look to be a little broader in the shoulders than I am, so maybe the increased effort isn't as big a deal to you as it would be to me. But I don't think I'd want to captain a quad with a 40cm bar.

3) We have a great experience with our Co-Motion quad. No manufacturer-related issues at all, just normal bike maintenance. They are also helpful to talk to if you have a question -- I called when I was replacing the cassette to see if they had thoughts about what to get and they were great.

4) The only manufacturers I would consider would be Co-Motion, Santana, and R+E. They are the only ones that have built enough quads to have any experience at it. Other builders may have built one once, but not enough to have lessons learned, both in frame construction and in component selection.

Random additional thoughts:

Our bike is not convertible, so no couplers, and therefore it has a full height frame instead of the short frame you linked to. It does have the periscope feature on the rear (4th) seat. The periscope works well, it's very stiff. However, I think I would stick with a full height frame. I think the short convertible frame will have more flex than I would prefer when built as a quad. Our steel full height quad does have more flex than our Cannondale tandem (no surprise there). It's not an issue, but it is something I notice (I'm the kind of person that notices things!). If money were no object, I would probably get a full height aluminum frame because that will be stiffer. Possibly with the periscope on the rear position. If the kids are too short to fit, I would make that work with crank shorteners and kid stoker kits until they get bigger. All our kids started on a stoker kit right behind me and then rotated to crank shorteners in the rear position when their legs grew. Just eyeballing it, I'd think your oldest could certainly handle crank shorteners right now, and perhaps your younger kid as well.

Precision Tandems in KS is a Co-Motion dealer, and they have prices on their website. I don't know if the prices are updated, but even if they aren't they will give you a ballpark idea: https://www.precisiontandems.com/catframetandem.htm So they have a steel quad at $12,495 and an aluminum quad at $14,800. For me, those are big numbers. So if I were you and money is not unlimited, I would go see the quad in Portland that is linked in post #2. As long as it's a decent fit for you and your wife, I'd buy it.

I think this would be the same as piloting the rig you have now, but be aware that you do not want to be on your tiptoes when steadying a quad for everyone to get on. You want to be able to spread your legs wide enough to not get smacked by the pedals when your kid decides to whirl the cranks around, and get your heels firmly on the ground.

You do have to think about how you are going to transport a quad and how to store it. Ours will juuuuuust fit in an '08 Honda Odyssey with the hatch closed if we take off both wheels and the handlebars so the fork can spin backwards. That was good enough to get it home after we bought it, but for riding purposes that is a pain to do every time you go. We ended up hanging it out the back end. These days we have a Ford Transit, and I made a sled out of a 2X6 and a fork mount so I can slide it in easily. The only thing we remove is the front wheel. Of course the Portland bike comes with a rack that solves the transportation problem. At home, the length with the wheels on is around 13 feet, so you need a place to store that length.

That's all I can think of for now. Let me know if you have further questions!

WheelsNT

Another thought --

You do want your kids' feet attached to the pedals somehow so they don't slip off and get whaled by the pedals as you push them. On your trail-a-bike, the kids are setting their own cadence, and they can stop if both of them want. On a quad, they are on your cadence, and they can't stop unless you do. If you come into a situation while riding and suddenly need to spin it up, you can whack their feet/shins/knees if their feet come off. We always used cheap pedals with clips and straps for the little ones. As soon as they get big enough to fit into cycling shoes, we got shoes and clipless pedals for them. The time/hassle saved getting started where they can just click in by themselves without my help was worth the expense.

MNBikeCommuter

I just ride a Cannondale tandem too, so am of no help regarding quads. Mark, of Precision Tandems mentioned above, is also a good resource for your unanswered questions. I watched his girls grow up on the annual CANDISC bike ride in North Dakota where they'd ride their quad. I imagine the hey-day for their quad mileage is over, much like my hard-core tandem mileage is behind me with my daughter (main stoker) getting married and hindered with other life activities. Make the most of time with your family at this age. It's worth it!

WheelsNT

One more --

Some kind of visual gear indication is helpful for the captain. On a 2-seat tandem, the captain can see the front chainrings without too much trouble, and can maybe see the rear cassette. The captain is also close enough to hear shifts taking place, and there's feedback through the shift cable -- you can sense how hard you are pushing to make the shift. On a quad, hearing can be really tough if there is any road / traffic / wind noise, and there's really no way to see anything. The shift cable is so long you can't feel anything through it.

So, the flat bar trigger shifters I have include a visual indication of the gear. On drop bars, there are some inline indicators that have been made in the past, or there are FlightDeck computers, or DI2 with a display.... Several different possibilities. However it is done, I think you'd find a visual indicator helpful.